


you change my mood, you play my tunes

by escherzo



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Arizona Coyotes | Phoenix Coyotes, Other, Venom (2018) Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 00:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16587302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: “Okay, I know this is gonna sound weird, but you have to promise that if I tell you you're not going to scream. Just—cover your mouth, okay?”“Scream?” Law asks, eyebrows up, but he covers his mouth anyway.





	you change my mood, you play my tunes

**Author's Note:**

> Please blame [gigantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantic) for this. "dylan strome: most likely to have a symbiote" proved... uh, inspirational.
> 
> Title from [this jam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTuH7gWeAQc) which is my song of choice this weekend. Thanks to [nebs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulia) for the name of Dylan's symbiote. Venom probably exists somewhere in this 'verse also, but Dylan probably doesn't pay much attention to the news, so, well.

“You're looking better these days,” Law says, grinning, and tosses a pillow at Dylan. 

He's not wrong. The bags under Dylan's eyes—the ones that made all his teammates text him videos of raccoons doing things and got him the occasional nickname “trash panda”--are less obvious than they've ever been. He's tanned, healthy, smiling more, scoring goals, actually making some headway on a NHL team. Law would never make fun of him for the time it took on the last part, unlike a lot of people; he was drafted high enough, and traded quick enough, that he gets the same kind of media coverage (that they all pretend they don't see) that Dylan does. He gets it. 

“Yeah,” Dylan says, catching it quick enough that his hand is a blur, and Law blinks. Aw, shit, was that too-- “Yeah, I... got some things settled down lately.” 

**Things? I'm not a _thing_.**

_C'mon, you know what I meant._

**Just tell him. He'll be fine.**

_If he screams and we get in trouble for the noise I'm blaming you._

**Trouble with who? We'll--**

_We will_ not, _I know where that one's going._

“Some things?” Law asks. He's propped up on one elbow, scratchy hotel duvet pulled up to his armpits, and he has a way of looking at you that makes you feel like you're a video of an adorable puppy he's been watching on loop. It's really soothing, honestly. Law is great. 

“Okay, I know this is gonna sound weird, but you have to promise that if I tell you you're not going to scream. Just—cover your mouth, okay?”

“ _Scream?_ ” Law asks, eyebrows up, but he covers his mouth anyway. Law is _great_. 

“Okay, buddy, come on out and say hi,” Dylan says, and Havoc oozes out from his shoulder, all their teeth on display, a mass of roiling dark blue goo shot through with gold streaks. 

**”Hi,”** Havoc says, sticking their tongue out at Law, which, rude. **”We're Havoc. Nice to meet you. Dylan thinks you're great.”**

Law does not scream. From behind his hand he meeps a little, though. 

*

So, sometimes, you're the captain of a junior team, and trying really, really hard to be a good captain, because everyone has compared you to Davo for like, three years, and if you're a shittier captain than him it will be all anyone will talk about until the end of time and also like, the rookies are _babies_ , and they need all the help they can get and you've sorta inured yourself to being the one called upon in times of crisis because the aformentioned Davo has zero talent on the life skills and basic common sense fronts. 

And sometimes one of the rookies out of nowhere looks incredibly sick all the time and walks around the locker room with enormous bruises and flinches out of nowhere constantly and also, despite being criticized in scouting reports for not being “strong enough” suddenly can _punch through walls_ , and Coach wants you to sit down with him in private and ask him if he's gotten into steroids and, well.

Look, Dylan was just trying to do the right thing, okay.

It's not _his_ fault that some incredibly shady company let a seventeen year old participate in a medical trial that involved literal aliens from outer space. Or that the literal alien from outer space in question decided Dylan was a much cozier place to live as soon as he put a comforting hand on said rookie's shoulder. 

“Why didn't you want to stay with him?” Dylan asked once, and Havoc hmmed for a moment before offering, **”He was--”** and then making Dylan's brain loop the “it's free real estate!” meme for a solid minute before continuing, **”But you're _perfect_.”**

On one hand, being stuck in a seventeen year old's brain for an extended period of time as the first introduction to humanity means that Havoc automatically goes for memes in basically any given situation, and that's kind of a mess. On the other, well. 

Well.

It's just—it's been a _really long time_ since anyone looked at Dylan and told him he was perfect, okay.

Of course he didn't do anything to fix the situation even when he hadn't figured out the right diet yet and Havoc was like, actively digesting most of his organs. 

*

Law takes his hand away from his mouth. His eyes are still very, very wide. 

“Nice... to meet—oh my god sorry I can't Stromer what _is_ that.”

“You know that one time before the draft when we got really high and talked about what it would be like to meet aliens for like four hours?” Dylan asks.

“Oh my god.”

“Actual alien,” Dylan says brightly, and Havoc forms a hand to reach from Dylan's bed to Law's so that they can shake hands. 

“Oh my god,” Law repeats, but he's grinning again now. “That felt so weird, can I touch it again?” 

Havoc obliges, twining around Law's hand, and Law stares down, fascinated. 

**”We still don't quite get how your measurement system works but we think we're from about thirty light years away,”** Havoc says, clearly pleased by all the attention. The bubbling warmth in Dylan is only about half him, right now. 

“That's _so cool_.” 

“It gets cooler,” Dylan says, and god, why the fuck hasn't he told anyone else about Havoc, this is _awesome_. “Do your thing, buddy.”

Havoc envelops him and they become Them, and Law puts both of his hands over his mouth this time. 

“ _Oh my god_.” 

**”I know, right,”** Dylan says through their shared mouth. 

“ _Please_ tell me you secretly fight crime on off-days.”

 **”... Well. Sometimes,”** Dylan hedges, because they're still testing the waters on that, but they _have_ , and fuck, that's cool, and he hasn't gotten to tell _anyone_ about it yet. 

Law's eyes are shining, and his grin is so big and awed that it looks like it hurts, and Dylan doesn't have half the vocabulary to describe how fucking cool it is to get to share this with someone and have them appreciate it as much as he does. He doesn't even need to make Law promise he won't tell, because he knows he won't. It'll just be them, in the locker room, and the unspoken knowledge between them that Dylan's carrying around a badass alien from outer space and is, basically, an _actual superhero_. 

Life is so good right now. So good.

*

This isn't to say it hasn't been a bumpy road. 

A partial list of the things that have been eaten since Dylan and Havoc became a unit, before he learned to just go to the closest butcher's shop and let Havoc take control with his credit card in hand: three dozen eggs with the shells on, two live chickens from a farmer's market, an actual coyote, more roadkill than he wants to think about, at least a dozen rats, and the heads of several corpses in the Coronado National Forest. He still feels _really bad_ about that last one. Like, okay, they were already dead and all, but even so. 

Also there was the minor detail of what Havoc was doing to his body during that period.

 **Your organs were just really tasty,** Havoc says, and their guilty shifting inside him feels weird as fuck and he shudders. 

“Buddy,” he says. “We agreed we weren't going to talk about this again.”

 **Right,** Havoc says. **You look great today, by the way.**

Dylan is still a little embarrassed by the impulse buying of Burberry shirts when he got his first real NHL paycheck, but Havoc is so pleased by them that he's made a mental note to get a few more once he hits some bonuses. Designer clothes are just _really soft_. 

Havoc has also, because again, introduction to humanity via a seventeen year old, taken to referring to Dylan as their sugar daddy. Thoughts like that probably aren't helping. 

*

The first time Havoc manifested, Dylan freaked the fuck out while also thinking, “what that tongue do though”. 

That they've ended up making out once in awhile is just a natural progression.

That Havoc can manifest actual tentacles from literally anywhere they want on Dylan's body has led to—other natural progressions. Dylan's not quite ready to share those details with Law, but he's also sort of privately glad that he watched a lot of really weird porn on the internet when he was younger, because incredibly dubious hentai sites Havoc can find in his memory have been, ah, very instructional. 

*

“Let's do this, superhero,” Law says under his breath, and Dylan lets the navy and gold seep through onto his fingers when he reaches out and fist-bumps Law.

They've got a game to win, and he's an extra-skater advantage every time he goes over the boards, but Law is the only one who knows, and so there's no rules against what he is. 

They're gonna _kick ass._


End file.
